


Smiley and Co.

by reachforthesky



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Shirazu POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:09:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5500151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reachforthesky/pseuds/reachforthesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas for the Quinx: Sasaki goes more all-out than anyone ever anticipated, Urie's greatest fear is revealed, and Shirazu is witness to a vaguely romantic encounter. (It's not as exciting as it seems.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smiley and Co.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hyukjae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyukjae/gifts).



> hello, secret santa here! i hope you enjoy this; i tried to fit to your preferences as much as possible and ended up with this silly little thing. thank you so much for the opportunity to write fluff about my babies.
> 
> this takes place after the auction, right before the first (and only ;A;) Christmas the quinx ever shared.

I think I first noticed something was up when Sassan put the elf on the shelf.

It was, to be frank, a creepy little thing, with hugeass ears and a smile to match. It sat on top of the mantelpiece in the living room, and Sassan introduced it to us as if it was his own child. 

“This is Smiley,” he proclaimed, grinning nonstop, “and he’s going to be staying with us until Christmas to make sure that you kids behave.”

Urie covered his face with his hands.

“He reports back to Santa” -- Mutsuki stuffed his fist into his mouth, but a snort escaped anyway -- “so make sure you don’t act naughty, or he’ll take you off the ‘nice’ list!’

Smiley the elf. _Santa._ I couldn’t help it, okay? I started laughing.

Mutsuki bit down so hard on his knuckles that he drew blood, but even as he yanked his hand out he started chuckling along with me. Then Saiko was laughing, and Urie was blocking his ears too, and the smile fell off Sassan’s face faster than I thought humanly possible. 

“Smiley’s not going to appreciate that, Shirazu.”

We were all dead silent for a second -- it was eerily frightening to hear him speak like that. Then --

“Sasarious is in the house!” Saiko shrieked, extending the last word, and the three of us burst into giggles again. 

“Guys! _Guys,_ ” Sassan said in a feeble attempt to shut us up. “Santa will be angry!!”

“I’m sorry,” Mutsuki said, wiping his eyes. “It’s just -- Santa --”

Urie emerged from whatever Sassan-free void he had created to say, “Do you really expect us to believe in that sort of thing?”

Sassan frowned. “Well, yeah…don’t all kids?”

“We’re just three years younger than you,” I wheezed, still trying to hold back my laughter. “We’re not five years old!”

“You might be, by the way you act,” Saiko said with a roll of her eyes. “Hey, Maman, if we believe in Santa do we get more presents?”

“Absolutely not. Santa is _real_ , and if you don’t believe in him you’re missing out on the Christmas spirit,” he said firmly, but his pursed lips were twitching.

(After that, Saiko was an open believer in Santa and all things related.) 

As the days counted down to Christmas, Sassan began to get more and more fervent about the whole Smiley the Elf thing. It got to the point where it was a running joke between Saiko, Mutsuki, and me, and eventually turned into a game of good-natured insults:

“Saiko, don’t eat too much! Santa will be angry!”

“Santa’s fatter than I am. Besides, you still haven’t paid off your coal loan since you were ten, Shiragin.”

“Mutsuki ain’t off the hook either! Don’t think I didn’t see you cheat at Mario the other day!”

And then, with a jolly ‘ho-ho-ho’ and a cup of coffee to match, Sassan would burst into the room to our combined laughter. It was nice, I supposed, to be able to hang out with everyone and insult people in the name of Santa, but one thing was off: Urie, being the lame ass that he was, didn’t bother to participate. By the time the week before Christmas rolled around, he was the only one not constantly making exaggerated comments about the realness of Santa and the beauty of the Christmas Spirit. None of us really bothered to do anything about it. Urie was a hopeless case, after all.

“Urie! Get your ass down here,” I called one evening -- it must have been about four days before Christmas. “The pressure cooker keeps whistling and I can’t stop it.”

A voice floated from the upper floor: “Mutsuki should know how.” 

I glanced at the pressure cooker; there was a steady blow of steam spewing from it that showed no signs of slowing. “Mutsuki and Sassan are out.”

A long sigh. “Fine.”

“Hurry up…! I think this thing is going to start spewing rice!”

Urie’s footsteps sounded as he descended the stairs and I rushed across the living room to get him, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Urie!” I bellowed. “Where the hell are you?”

“I’m coming,” he replied -- and was that a hint of anxiety in his voice?

There was suddenly a rush of air and a blur of something black and gray. I whipped around to try and catch it, but it was already gone. It was like nothing had ever happened. 

“U-Urie? There was … Urie, where are you?” As much as I hated to admit it, my voice was rising, and I backed up against a wall _just in case_ there was something skulking around. (Just in case, mind you.)

I was just beginning to convince myself that I’d imagined it when the pressure cooker randomly stopped whistling. 

“URIE!” I wailed -- er, I cried out rather loudly. “There’s a thing in here and it’s going to kill us and there pressure cooker stopped and -- wait -- _huh?_ ”

The one and only Urie had just stepped out from behind the counter, looking decidedly pissed. “What do you want?”

I stared.

Urie’s frown deepened. “What?”

“How did you get to the kitchen?” I finally managed. 

“I walked. Right past your bony nose.”

I replayed the events of the past half minute in my mind, and it all clicked. “Then _you_ were the crazy thing…!”

“I’d say you’re the crazy thing in this household, but alright,” he said. Strangely enough, he was hovering at the border between the kitchen and the living room instead of disappearing as fast as he had entered. 

“Aren’t you going upstairs?” I blurted out, and immediately cursed my idiocy. The one time Urie was willing to socialize, I just had to shove him away. What an idiot. I was king of the idiots.

“I’ll go in a second.” There it was again -- his voice was very nearly wavering. “I want to make sure you didn’t turn our dinner into rice water first.”

With that, he reentered the kitchen, but failed to come out for several minutes. I considered forgetting the whole incident and watching some TV, but actually finding something that scared Urie was enough for me to sneak behind the counter.

Urie was hunched over the pressure cooker, sifting through the rice with a spoon and muttering to himself. I leaned a little forward, trying to catch what he was saying, and a few words made it to my ears. 

“...It’s just an elf it’s a goddamn stuffed animal its eyes are made of fluff it’s not actually watching me calm down Urie. Calm…”

It was the elf. Smiley. 

Another thing I couldn’t help doing: I choked on my own spit trying not to start screeching with laughter and ended up landing on the ground with a loud ‘ouch’, right behind Urie.

He turned around in slow-motion. “How long have you been here?”

“It’s the elf,” I croaked, which was probably the worst possible thing to say. “I can’t believe this.”

Something hard and foul-smelling was pressing onto my head -- Urie’s shoe, by the feel of it. “If you tell anybody… ”

But of course, in true Shirazu style, I had to bait him. “If Saiko knew, she’d have a fit. I bet even Mutsuki would bust out laughing.”

The foot was practically boring a hole into my head. “Don’t you dare.”

I was saved from further agony by the clattering of keys at the door, and Urie had hauled me to my feet, shoved me into the pantry, and resumed sifting through the pressure cooker by the time Mutsuki and Sassan entered.

“Oh, Urie!” Sassan’s voice called out; he was obviously pleased to see him downstairs for once. “How’s dinner coming along?”

“Shirazu let the cooker run for too long. This is practically rice-water.”

“Oh, it can’t be that bad.” Mutsuki’s footsteps sounded across the floor as Sassan shouted something about finishing a report. “Smiley might tell Santa Shirazu sucks at cooking, but that’s about it.”

“That thing’s fake,” he grumbled. I couldn’t resist it; I opened the pantry door a crack to glimpse Urie’s vaguely panicked face.

Mutsuki rested his elbows on the counter. “It wouldn’t hurt to play along, Urie.”

“I won’t play along with lameass jokes.”

Mutsuki chuckled. “They’re only as lame as you make them.”

Mutsuki was smiling a little weirdly, I noticed, and suddenly it felt wrong for me to be watching them. Urie shifted uncomfortably, as if he wanted to leave but couldn’t.

Oh. Right.

“Urie… are you holding up alright? Are you sure you don’t need some company once in a while, especially after -- you know…?” Mutsuki’s voice had dropped to a low, soothing tone, and it became clear to me that this was something I wasn’t supposed to hear. Urie shot a furtive look at the pantry and caught my gaze, and it was as if he was screaming at me to leave.

“Let’s not talk about it here,” Urie said harshly, moving away from the pressure cooker but finding himself trapped in the small confines of the kitchen.

“There’s no one listening.”

“There is,” he said emphatically (well, about as emphatic as Urie could get). 

Mutsuki laughed. “Who, Smiley?”

Urie stiffened. “No, I -- Mutsuki --”

“I’ll walk you to your room, if you’re so scared,” he said gently, as if he was teasing but not quite, but I could see Urie’s fists open just a little.

“If you insist.”

Mutsuki’s eyes widened; he probably hadn’t been expecting Urie to actually agree. But when Urie set off like he was attempting a life-threatening journey he followed without hesitation, and for a split second I found myself admiring Mutsuki’s guts. 

I snuck out of the pantry after they had gone and made my way to the mantelpiece, watching Smiley from where he sat at my eye level. It was creepy, I supposed, if I really looked, but I would have never guessed that it would be enough to scare Urie into spending time with somebody.

Unless Urie wanted -- unless he and Mutsuki -- 

I forced the thought out of my mind -- I was the only one in this house cool enough to have a girlfriend anyway -- until Christmas Eve, after the guests we'd invited over had all left and everyone was asleep (or so I'd thought, anyway). 

I remember clearly that it was 11:52 exactly when I began to hear noises. I had just recovered from a dream about the pressure cooker monster only for more ominous nsounds to be sounding from downstairs. It was a persistent and endless scratching sound, as if someone was constantly scuffing their feet on hardwood floors. As I lay silently in bed, very nearly petrified, it only seemed to get louder and louder until I couldn’t take it anymore. 

“This isn’t Halloween,” I said to myself, and shuffled down the stairs. 

Halfway down, though, a voice hissed into my ear: “Psst.”

I was about to turn around and punch whoever it was through the wall when I recognized Mutsuki’s slight frame and distinctive eyepatch. 

“What are you doing?” I breathed, trying to force my blood pressure down.

“The same as you,” he replied. “Oh, and Urie’s right behind me.”

I couldn’t hide my disbelief. “ _Urie?_ ”

“Don’t say a word,” he warned, and I figured that it meant more than the fact that he was with Mutsuki.

“What about Saiko?” I asked after a long and rather awkward pause.

“Sleeping. We’ll drag her down if there’s a ghoul lurking around or something,” said Mutsuki.

And so the three of us proceeded like a dysfunctional congo line, stumbling down the stairs until we reached the darkened living room. The Christmas tree was the sole light in the area, and there was a very distinct _something_ circling around it.

“You think Smiley came to life?” I whispered in clear earshot of Urie, who dug his nails into my neck in response.

“Wait, I think --” Whatever brilliant thought Mutsuki had was cut short when the _something_ turned around and was illuminated in the tree’s lights.

It was big and red -- or was that a red coat? Yes, it was a red coat. And a red hat. And was that a _beard?_ What were those boxes in its arms?

_Oh--_

“It’s Santa,” Mutsuki said in a voice that could have come straight from a Christmas special. 

“No, it’s Sasaki,” Urie countered (of course he had to ruin all the fun). “Look closer.”

I squinted and could definitely see the resemblance: under all that fake fat and the ridiculous costume, that was definitely Sassan peeking out. After all, what kind of Santa would turn sheet-white after being caught by the children?

“Ho, ho, ho,” he said finally, and I had to fight the urge to start laughing again.

“You’re not fooling anyone,” Urie told him, and turned around. “What a waste of time. I’m going back to sleep.”

“Wait,” Mutsuki said, grabbing his wrist, and Urie actually stopped short. Sassan and I watched, mouths agape, as Urie faced Mutsuki and let out a sigh.

“I suppose you’re going to force me to stay.”

Mutsuki laughed weakly, and Urie didn’t go upstairs. 

I repeat: _Urie didn’t go upstairs._

I couldn’t stop staring. “It’s a Christmas miracle.”

“The magic of Christmas,” Sassan boomed in agreement. “Come now, children, if you will not sleep then have a midnight snack with Santa.”

We ended up dragging Saiko down (in a convoluted way, it _was_ a ghoul lurking around downstairs so we had every right) and Sassan served us cookies and milk. We ate up while Sassan entertained us with various stories of how he had traveled all over the world giving gifts, and in my sleepy haze it was easier to just pretend it was all true.

After all, the four of us were alive and sitting around the table together and able to do dumb things like freak out over stuffed elves, and if that wasn’t too good to be true I don’t know what is.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for the sappy ending, lol. merry christmas!!
> 
> and you can also grab me on tumblrrrrr : cloudledee dot tumblr dot com


End file.
